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In religion, ensoulment is the moment at which a human being gains a soul. Some religions say that a soul is newly created within a developing child and others, especially in religions that believe in reincarnation, that the soul is pre-existing and added at a particular stage of development. In the time of Aristotle it was widely believed that the human soul entered the forming body at 40 days (male embryos) or 90 days (female embryos), and quickening was an indication of the presence of a soul. Other religious views are that ensoulment happens at the moment of conception; or when the child takes the first breath after being born;〔 at the formation of the nervous system and brain; at the first brain activity; or when the fetus is able to survive independently of the uterus (viability).〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=BBC - Religion & Ethics - When is the foetus 'alive'?: The stages of foetal development )〕 The concept is closely related to debates on the morality of abortion as well as the morality of contraception. Religious beliefs that human life has a innate sacredness to it have motivated many statements by spiritual leaders of various traditions over the years. However, the three matters are not exactly parallel, given that various figures have argued that some kind of life without a soul, in various contexts, still has a moral worth that must be considered. ==Ancient Greeks== Among Greek scholars, Aristotle (384 – 322 BC) believed a fetus in early gestation has the soul of a vegetable, then of an animal, and only later became "animated" with a human soul by "ensoulment". For him, ensoulment occurred 40 days after conception for male fetuses and 90 days after conception for female fetuses,〔〔(ReligiousTolerance.org )〕 the stage at which, it was held, movement is first felt within the womb and pregnancy was certain.〔(Aristotle, History of Animals, book VII, part III )〕〔(Norman M. Ford, When Did I Begin? Conception of the Human Individual in History, Philosophy and Science ) (Cambridge & New York, Cambridge University Press ISBN 978-0-521-42428-8), p. 28〕 This is called epigenesis, which is "the theory that the germ is brought into existence (by successive accretions), and not merely developed, in the process of reproduction,"〔(【引用サイトリンク】at=epigenesis )〕 in contrast to the theory of preformation, which asserts the "supposed existence of all the parts of an organism in rudimentary form in the egg or the seed;"〔(【引用サイトリンク】at=preformation )〕 modern embryology, which finds both that an organism begins with an inherited genetic code and that embryonic stem cells can develop epigenetically into a variety of cell types, may be seen as supporting a balance between the views.〔For a discussion of the differences between epigenesis and the theory of preformation, see this: 〕 Stoicism maintained that the living animal soul was received only at birth, through contact with the outer air,〔(A.A. Long, ''Stoic Studies'' (University of California Press 2001 ISBN 978-0-520-22974-7), p. 237 )〕 and was transformed into a rational soul only at fourteen years of age.〔(Tad Brennan, ''The Stoic Life'' (Oxford University Press 2005 ISBN 978-0-19-925626-6), p. 155 )〕 Epicureanism saw the origin of the soul (considered to consist of only a small number of atoms even in adults) as simultaneous with conception.〔(Norman Wentworth DeWitt, ''Epicurus and His Philosophy'' (University of Minnesota 1954), p. 201 )〕 Pythagoreanism also considered ensoulment to occur at conception.〔(David Albert Jones, ''The Soul of the Embryo'' (Continuum International 2004 ISBN 978-0-8264-6296-1) )〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「ensoulment」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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